Chicken Soup for the Bride's Soul (21 page)

Soon after, Vicki discovered she was pregnant. Then she heard David had a new girlfriend. Not wanting to get in the way of what she perceived as his new happiness, Vicki decided not to call him. Rumors of a baby and pressures from their families frightened David as well. Brokenhearted, and in a desperate attempt to find himself and some sanity, he joined the Navy.

In January, Vicki gave birth to a baby girl and named her Tammy Lisa. By now, she and David had lost all contact. As more time passed, they both married other people. David became the father of two more daughters. Vicki had a son.

Six years passed, and Vicki worried that if something happened to her, Tammy would never know the real story of her father. So she wrote a letter explaining everything, included the only two pictures she had of David, and stored it all in a safe deposit box.

As the years passed, Vicki never forgot David and the love they shared. When Tammy turned sixteen, Vicki gave her the letter she had written ten years earlier.

After reading it, Tammy looked up. “Momma, it’s time to find my daddy.”

The search began. For the next three years they hunted for David Garcia. They tried agencies, libraries, police departments, even old military records, with no luck. After they placed an ad in the
Army Times,
the father of David’s best friend saw the ad, and his son called Vicki. She learned David was now using his birth father’s last name, Frizzell. A new search began, and twenty years after they had parted, Vicki held David’s phone number in her hand.

With trembling fingers, she dialed. When David heard her voice, he was overwhelmed, shaken and—to her delight— thrilled. He told her he had longed to know how she was doing and yearned to see and know his daughter. Ten years earlier he had tried to find Vicki but with no success.

David was alive, well and happy to hear from her. He told her he would come to Mississippi to meet Tammy, the daughter he had wondered about all these years. Vicki shared with David what had been in her heart for so long.

“David, I promised myself that if I ever found you I’d tell you this no matter what. When we were kids, I loved you. All these years I’ve loved you. Even through my marriage, I loved you. Every man I’ve ever known, I compared to you, and not one ever measured up.” Her words left him crying as he began to share his own, similar feelings. He had never forgotten her, never stopped loving her.

Tammy decided she wanted to greet her father privately, so she anxiously waited at her apartment while Vicki made the three-hour drive to pick him up—alone.

At the airport, Vicki’s anxious excitement grew. Each minute seemed like an hour. She paced back and forth and touched up her makeup three times. David was also nervous. As the plane landed, his heart started pounding. Once on the ground, he was impatient to find Vicki, to see her again.

As David walked off the plane, they recognized each other instantly. Amazingly, they saw each other as if through a tunnel, and the rest of the airport went white and grew silent. With smiles of joy on their faces, they gazed at each other in wide-eyed amazement. David slowly drew her into his arms and kissed her. Time stood still as the past and the present collided in one dramatic moment.

The drive home passed in no time, as they talked about their lives and all that each had done. During short silences, they would glance at each other and whisper, “I can’t believe it’s really you.”

When they arrived at Tammy’s apartment, David immediately recognized the beautiful young woman waiting outside as his daughter. Sharing their first hugs, they began talking and laughing at the same time. That night, they watched home videos of Tammy growing up, and all three cried as the history of Tammy’s life that David had missed rolled by on the screen.

Two days after arriving in Mississippi, David realized that the only place on Earth he wanted to be was with Vicki and Tammy. He proposed, and Vicki excitedly accepted.

“If I wasn’t living it, I wouldn’t believe it!” she exclaimed.

As they planned their wedding over the next few weeks, they easily rediscovered their love for each other. Vicki’s parents were overjoyed to have David back in their lives, treating him as if he was a son who had finally come home.

The following June, Vicki’s parents gave them a traditional southern wedding. The invitation showed a fairytale castle with the words “Dreams Come True.” Tammy was maid of honor.

Arriving in a horse-drawn carriage, the bride wore the long white gown of her dreams. During the ceremony, David sang a song he wrote for Vicki that told the world the miracle of their love story: “Old Love Turned Brand-New.” At the end of the ceremony, David gazed at his daughter and sang a special song he’d written called “Daddy’s Little Girl—Tammy’s Song.”

It took twenty years to fill the empty space they’d all had in their hearts. Now their family circle was finally complete.

Vicki Frizzell
As told to Janet Matthews

Got Match?

Brides dream of a wedding day heralded with pomp and circumstance: a beautiful venue with acres of flowers, just the right music wafting through the rafters of the church, and gorgeous attendants and handsome groomsmen bedecked in the most expensive gowns and tuxedos available. They imagine themselves in the perfect wedding dress with sparkling rhinestones and sequins. They see the guests waiting in awe of their grand entrance while they delicately take steps in time to the music toward their handsome intended waiting with a smile at the end of the aisle.

In their dreams, everything is perfectly planned and perfectly executed . . . for the perfect day.

Perfection took on a new meaning the day of my wedding. I had planned so efficiently that everything was finely tuned six months before the ceremony.

My friend Allen, who was giving me away, greeted me at the door of the ballroom. The music, performed by George and Diane, professional musicians, was perfect. I stepped in time to the Wedding March up the aisle. At one point I lost my balance and had to hang on to his arm for dear life. A friend on the end of a row cheered me on. “Steady. . . S-t-e-a-d-y!”

The ceremony began, and was going smoothly until I noticed the judge skipped over the “Ave Maria,” which Diane was to sing . . . and he kept going, blasting right past the “Our Father” that was supposed to be sung next. I quickly glanced at the musicians as they turned the pages of sheet music like expert speed-readers. The ceremony was becoming a blur. My plans—the program—what had happened?

“. . . And now, they will light the unity candle,” said the judge. He stepped to one side. Jim and I stared, dumbfounded. One unity candle with two smaller candles—and none were lit.

Motionless for what seemed like eternity, Jim finally leaned over and whispered, “What are we supposed to do now?”

Quickly, like wildfire, a hushed, mild panic spread through the wedding party.

“Do
you
have any matches?” someone whispered.

“Not me!”

“Where do you think I’d put them if I did have them?”

“I have a lighter but it’s in my purse in the back.”

Now, as a professional speaker and trainer, I’m accustomed to thinking on my feet and quickly solving problems as they arise. I calmly and gracefully turned to the entire congregation.

“Does anyone have a match?”

Instant laughter erupted.

An usher, Ron, held his arm up like the Statue of Liberty. “I have a match!” He charged up the aisle to the rescue, only to stop short when he got to the candle table. Confused, he turned to my maid of honor.

“Which one do I light?” he whispered.

“The outside two!” she answered.

Obviously still confused, he lit the unity candle.

Jim leaned over to me and announced, “Congratulations. You’re now married—to Ron!”

Then a playful argument erupted between my maid of honor and Ron.

“Not
that
one. The
outside
two.”

“You said the inside one.”

“I did not!”

“Yes you did!”

“Blow that one out and light the other two!”

At this point I was crying—from laughter. And from the roars in the ballroom, you would have thought they were witnessing a comedy act.

Once all was settled, the judge pronounced us husband and wife, and presented us to our friends who stood—still laughing—and applauded loudly. Jim turned to me again.

“Are we done, now?”

“Yep, we’re done!”

“Good—my shoes are too big!”

We triumphantly marched down the aisle together, knowing that the events at our wedding would be the first of so many humorous moments we would share.

At the reception, all the guests freely mingled and shared laughs about the ceremony. I realized my nonchalant request for a match had eased the situation and made everyone feel at home.

The definition for a “perfectly planned wedding” was suddenly redefined. In my reality, everything was perfectly
un
-planned and perfectly
un
-executed. And, yet, I found the best match and married my best friend. And my day was indeed . . . perfect!

C. Capiz Greene

7
TREASURED
MOMENTS

S
ometimes I would almost rather have people take away years of my life than take away a moment.

Pearl Bailey

A Bridesmaid’s View from the Altar

I would expect to see her walk through any doorway but this one.

As I stand by the altar in black satin shoes, clutching my calla lily bouquet to fight back the tears, my thoughts run back to a hundred other doorways we’ve walked through together in our lives.

Valerie and I were five years old when we met, so my memories of her stretch back nearly as far as memories of my own family. Back to the time when we filled long summer days with the busy work of children: swapping ghost stories on the garage roof, dressing up in my mother’s old prom gowns or sitting on the swing set eating Cheetos and wiggling our baby teeth to see whose would fall out first.

We crossed all our doorways together back then. Passed through a hundred rites of childhood in tandem. We stood side-by-side on strangers’ doorsteps in Girl Scout beanies, peddling Thin Mints and Shortbreads. We ran shivering from door to door on Halloween, ragged hobos and red-lipped gypsies clutching plastic pumpkins full of candy. We scrambled over mountains of snow on Christmas mornings to bounce impatiently on each other’s front porches, breathing the icicle air and fogging the storm door in anticipation.

A few years later, I grew into an awkward chubby preteen standing on that same front porch every morning dreading elementary school. I learned how cruel fifth-graders could be as I struggled through that painful phase. But Valerie met me faithfully outside my classroom every afternoon, oblivious to the welcoming arms of cliques that shunned me. She stayed as unquestioning and loyal a friend as any child could want.

Summers and winters passed by and led us through the doors of junior high, into the world of adolescence. Still side-by-side, we wrestled with our first pairs of nylons and fumbled through orchestra try-outs on second-hand violins. My ugly-duckling phase faded mercifully away and we began showing up on each other’s doorsteps for our annual Christmas present exchange, carrying rock records, sweaters and new pairs of Levi’s instead of toys.

Then, one chilly fall night in high school, I rounded the corner to Valerie’s house to ask a question about algebra and found her leaning dreamily against the doorframe, twisting a green carnation around her fingers. Instead of sharing my anxiety over logarithms, she told me about the boy who had given her the flower. I stood at the bottom of the porch tracing imaginary patterns in the cement, and watched uncomfortably as she leaned in the doorway, ready to enter a new phase of life.

Soon, and without asking for my advice, Valerie had a serious boyfriend. I took up with other friends and dated here and there, but always dug in my heels and clung to childhood more fiercely than she did. Our friendship drifted to a looser one of casual calls and shared rides to school. But the thread that bound us together proved stronger than first loves or teenage heartbreak. Like signals from a car radio winding through the countryside, it faded in and out, now strong, now muffled by static, but always there in the background.

So many thresholds we crossed together. So many years. They slipped by silently, and now I realize the door leading back is all but closed. The vivid colors of those days have faded to the pastels of memory. They rush by in a blur of brilliant ribbons until I come to where I stand now, holding my breath as the music plays.

I see Valerie round the corner confidently, her arm through her father’s. And it seems to me that instead of an aisle adorned with white bows and green leaves, as I watch she has passed quickly through each doorway of our lives, intertwined for the past twenty years. Far away, I see a tiny Valerie reaching up for her father’s hand. Then she approaches and steps into focus in cream satin, pearls and white lace.

It hardly seems possible that this is the same Valerie who braved the first day of kindergarten with me, hit me in the mouth with a Zodiac ball in junior high and gave me a fat lip. The same Valerie who scolded me for singing Girl Scout songs off-key, stole Smirnoffs from my parents’ liquor cabinet with me to make our first Vodka Collinses. Shared my life. Grew up alongside me. Two doors away.